Why does swimming give you a charley horse?

So, yesterday I was in the pool. I just finished a workout — a speed over endurance set — and I was having some fun with some drills using my flippers when BAM!

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OH MY GOD THE PAIN.

I got the worst charley horse I’ve ever had mid kick. It was so bad that I had to hang on to the lane and paddle back to the wall with my arms. I reached down on my left calf and I could both feel and see the knot where the charley horse was.

This wasn’t the first time I had gotten one. A few times, usually around the taper part of marathon training, I would get them when I was sleeping.

It’s like this intense, knotted pain in my calf that feels like someone stuck a knife in and started twisting it around. It’s abrupt (and would wake me up out of a deep sleep). And then after a few seconds, it passes.

It had happened once before to me in the pool. And sometimes when I am pushing off the wall in a flip turn, it feels like it might be coming on.

The weird thing about the spasm yesterday was that it still feels … weird … today. I went on a short run tonight and it felt a little tender.